US Supreme Court Considers Nigeria Torture Case

The US Supreme
Court began its new session on Monday by re-examining an explosive
international case alleging that oil giant Shell was complicit in acts of
torture by the Nigerian government.

Fresh from their pivotal decision
in June to uphold President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, the nine
Supreme Court justices took up a case with enormously important ramifications
for international human rights.

The legal argument pivots on
whether foreign plaintiffs have a right to file suit in American courts against
US corporations accused of human rights violations, under an arcane
200-year-old statute.

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum,
the oil giant is accused of being an accomplice to torture, extrajudicial
executions and crimes against humanity by the Nigerian government between 1992
and 1995 in the Niger Delta region.

Shell is alleged have helped the
former dictatorship arrest and torture 12 members of the Ogoni tribe, who had
sought to peacefully disrupt oil development because of its health and
environmental impacts.

Esther Kiobel, now a US citizen,
brought her claims on behalf of her late husband, Barinem Kiobel, who was
executed in a sham trial in which Shell is alleged to have played a key role.

Plaintiffs have invoked the Alien
Tort Statute (ATS), which allows non-citizens to sue in US courts for
violations of international law.

Human rights lawyers already use
the obscure statute to seek damages in US courts from foreign governments
involved in human rights abuses.

At issue now is whether
multinational corporations, allegedly complicit in such overseas abuses, are
also liable.

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Justices indicated in February that
the statute doesn't permit suits against corporations but decided to re-examine
the wider question of whether the statute can apply beyond US borders.

"ATS clearly covers those
violations," argued Carey D'Avino, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys.

The 1789 statute was barely used
for two centuries before being resurrected in the 1970s by human rights
activists to pursue international lawsuits.

This case is being closely watched
as it has implications for several other pending actions, including a group of
Indonesian villagers who accuse oil giant Exxon Mobil's security forces of murder
and torture.

Attorneys for Shell argue that the
oil giant cannot be held legally responsible in the United States for offenses
allegedly committed far from American shores.

"This case has nothing to do
with the US," said
Shell attorney Kathleen Sullivan, adding that the petitioners were seeking
legal redress "against an Anglo-Dutch corporation for something that
happened entirely in Nigeria."

But Paul Hoffman, lawyer for the
Nigerians, told the court that the plaintiffs, who have been granted asylum in
the United States,
sued here because this was their "adopted homeland."

The Committee for Constitutional
Rights, a non-profit group, said it was worried that a negative ruling would
damage the ability of the United
States to take the lead on international human
rights issues.

"The ATS has been a
cornerstone of US
human rights litigation for over three decades, providing victims of grave
human rights abuses justice that they could not get elsewhere," the group
said.

A decision is not expected until
next year.

During its new nine-month session,
which runs through June 2013, the Supreme Court will also consider a number of
other contentious issues ranging from gay marriage to civil rights.

In Fisher versus the University of Texas, the court will decide whether a
white student, Abigail Fisher, was passed over unfairly for admission in 2008
because the school went too far with its affirmative action policy.

Another hot-button issue in the United States
is same-sex marriage, and the court has at least eight appeals in line for
consideration on this subject.

After long side-stepping the issue,
Obama publicly endorsed gay marriage in May in a surprise move designed to draw
a sharp contrast with Mitt Romney, his Republican rival in the November
election who opposes same-sex unions.

Legal marriage between two men or
two women is not recognized by the US
federal government, but is now allowed in six of the 50 US states and in Washington,
the US
capital.